Sword of Fire and Sea tck-1

by Erin Hoffman

  An'du gagged, and Vidarian reached toward her out of reflex, tipping the yawl, but she recovered on her own, spitting out two large blue stones. She touched them to the water, and they shuddered in her hands-deep within, they echoed with lightning and swirled with cloud.

  Vidarian held out his hand, but An'du shook her head, closing her hands over the blue stones. “When you depart, so too will my ability to hold this shape, until the gate is reopened.”

  “Reopened?” he said in surprise, exchanging a look of confusion with Ariadel.

  An'du flicked her tail, sending a ripple through the water. “There are two paths,” she said. “In one, you seal the gate; in the other, you reopen it. You must know the consequences of each.”

  “And you can-become yourself-if I'm here…or if the gate is open. But I can't-”

  “Certainly not,” An'du agreed, dipping below the water for a moment and surfacing again. “You can't remain here. But part of you can.” She traced the surface of one of the sapphires with a fingertip, and lightning echoed beneath it.

  Vidarian's hand went to the pouch at his side. It stayed there, not removing either of the stones that lay inside. He looked at Ariadel.

  “It seems a fair bargain,” she offered, still clearly subdued by the thought of opening the gate, and An'du smiled.

  “The stone will be destroyed upon my death,” he said. “I think it only fair to warn you.”

  “I only need it until the gate is opened,” she said. “If you should do so, the awakening will begin, and I will even return it to you, if you wish.”

  “No,” he said, and drew the emerald from his pouch. His heart quickened as he touched it, a tremor of recognition pulsing through his senses. “I give it to you in trade. I've trusted you in my darkest hour, and need all the allies I can get.”

  They exchanged the stones, and as the sapphires fell into his hands, it was with a great weight, and he struggled to regain his balance. Overhead, Altair cried out, a piercing cry that cut the air, and the sky darkened.

  “You must control them,” An'du warned. “Especially when they're near the sun rubies. The gate must be opened with both, but they will not be content to be near each other.”

  Vidarian sat back in the yawl, wrapping his hands around the stones and extending his senses over them. They pulled him in like a funnel cloud, and he fought for control, gripping them in his mind. The sky lightened, reluctantly, and the cold bite that had hung in the air eased. Deep inside him, from within the braided core of his elemental senses, something tested the power of the sapphires, and exulted.

  “I wish you luck,” An'du said seriously, rolling the emerald between her fingers in a way that made Vidarian shiver and turn back to her. In the early morning light, her dark eyes cast down and bathed in the light of the emerald, she was strikingly beautiful, if equally alien. “You will have enemies, changebringer, that will not end with the gate's opening-or sealing. Allies you need, and you will have, but the powerful have the most to lose, and so will resist what you bring with all their strength.” Her hands closed around the emerald, dousing her face with shadow. “Luck, indeed, for all of us.”

  When they returned to shore with the sapphires, Arikaree, after stepping away from them long enough to shake the water from his feathers and fur, approached Vidarian, his eyes fixed on the blue stones. Vidarian's hold on them felt like pulling a sail filled with the wind; he was not fatigued yet, but he would be. And so when the pelican-gryphon extended his foreclaw, palm open, Vidarian tipped the stones onto it with a measure of relief.

  The gryphon inspected the stones for some time. Within, miniature clouds roiled, and the occasional soft peal of thunder even caused them to shudder. // A storm is being a bridge, hurr, // he said, touching a talon to the surface of the stone. The electricity within it shot from the bottom of the stone to the tip of his claw. // The lightning, hurr-the storm being meeting of sea and fire, the lightning a lance between earth and sky. Bridge for gate-opening, bridge for change-bringing. //

  “Thalnarra,” Vidarian said, “An'du said that the Tesseract opens the gate-not seals it.”

  The gryphoness made a dry clicking noise in her throat, a sound of dissatisfaction that wasn't quite a growl.

  // There are-conflicting prophesies, // Altair said.

  Vidarian felt his eyebrows lifting.

  // According to some prophesies, the Tesseract seals the Great Gate, solidifying the choice made by the PrimeAdepts centuries ago. In others, he opens the gate, bringing its old powers back into the world. // The gryphon's large blue eye turned toward Vidarian, pinning. // A modern theory indicates that the Tesseract chooses the world's destiny. //

  // But in either event, // Thalnarra said, her tone not conceding an inch, // your path, and ours, takes us to the gate. //

  It seemed too great a simplification for so great a decision, but a look in Thalnarra's eye told him now wasn't the time to press for detail. “An'du said that I would need the rubies as well,” Vidarian said.

  “Which means Val Harlon,” Ariadel finished. “And the Quest.”

  // We are strong mages, all of us, but not enough to stand up to all that Endera will bring, if she chooses, // Thalnarra rumbled.

  “I can't imagine this would come to violence,” Ariadel protested.

  Thalnarra turned to look at her, red eyes pinning, but she said nothing.

  “Ruby will be docked there,” Vidarian said, talking between them. “If we fly quickly, she won't have waited long.”

  They hauled the yawl from the An'durin and prepared it for flight once more. As the gryphons were stretching their wings in preparation for the flight, Thalnarra said, // The fastest route to Val Harlon by air takes us over Cheropolis, and an assortment of outlying villages. //

  // We must ascend, // Altair said, his flutelike voice surprising after Thalnarra's intense but familiar one. // In the higher altitudes I will protect you with a shield of air. We can breathe there, but you cannot. //

  And indeed, while the beginning of their trip took them at a familiar height over hills and forests, as they drew closer to human-inhabited roads, the gryphons angled upward in the sky. The ground dwindled further beneath them, and Vidarian, who had become accustomed to the lower altitudes, found himself dizzied all over again as the landmarks grew smaller and smaller. His ears crackled with pain, and Ariadel motioned him to move his jaw-they made a midday snack of nuts and goat cheese from the Selturians for an excuse. As Altair had predicted, the air grew thin and harder to breathe. His lungs worked gamely, but it was as if the air simply was not there. When the gryphon's shield closed around them, muffling and enriching the air, it was a relief, and a however-illusory sense of security against the heights.

  As if buoyed by the higher altitudes, or perhaps an unexpressed air of urgency, the gryphons flew quickly west, and crossed the distance in a mere three and a half days, rising earlier and flying deeper toward night. Only when their wingbeats began to falter did they move to descend; Altair, who seemed to handle the upper altitudes more easily than his partners, looked as though he alone could have gone much longer.

  At midday on the fourth day, the spires of Val Harlon crept over the horizon, five points like talons on a gryphon's foreclaw reaching into the sky. And by midafternoon they were descending, spiraling toward the shielding forest that had cloaked the gryphons from view the first time Vidarian and Ariadel had landed here, fleeing the might of Sher'azar.

  But to Vidarian's surprise, they did not curve toward the sheltering forest. As they drew closer to the ground, it became increasingly apparent that the gryphons intended to land on the docks themselves, bearing toward the long arm of an empty pier adjacent to the Empress Quest. Further out, at the mouth of the wide bay that sheltered Val Harlon from the wild outer sea, the Viere d'Inar stood vigilant.

  “Thalnarra!” Vidarian shouted. “Where are you going?”

  // The time for subterfuge is ended, // she said, and the finality with which she rested on th
e last word sent a chill down Vidarian's spine. // Our separation from humanity was half our culture and half yours. I demanded from my flight a dissolution of our alliance with the priestesshood, and with it ends our exclusive contact with them. //

  // The air flights stand with our fire bretheren in this, // Altair added, his voice even softer than usual, a subtle (or perhaps Thalnarra would have said “passive aggressive”) dig at the larger gryphon's increasingly heated words. // We do not wish to alarm the smaller villages, whose mythology has grown against gryphonkind, but it will begin here in the cities. //

  Vidarian was learning not to ask what “it” was. Changebringer, he thought acidly, if only to cover his trepidation.

  As they dropped toward the ground, the gryphons’ wings fanning outward to brake and glide, the dockworkers raised their hands to shade their eyes and point, then turned and shouted. Men and women alike stood, stunned-some turned and fled, seized by fear, while others ran toward the water, summoned by the spectacle.

  Perhaps thinking to protect her, the priestesses had moved the Quest to the inner harbor. There was little traffic from other ships here, and the gryphons glided to a landing on the empty adjacent pier.

  Vidarian's family ship was covered with fire priestesses. Almost all his crew had been removed. They'd been gone so long, certainly many would have taken berths on other ships. But Marielle stood at the bow beside Endera, her hands in irons. His first mate and the priestess were exchanging heated words, indecipherable at this distance, though by the jerking of Marielle's chained hands they clearly concerned two too-familiar black-cloaked figures that stood behind Endera.

  The priestesses held torches each alive with an unnatural light, their life-essences burning in the clear light of day. The hair stood up on the back of Vidarian's neck as he counted how many coated his ship, each armed with flame. He helped Ariadel out of the yawl, and together they unharnessed the gryphons. The crowd that had gathered was growing larger, but none dared approach within fifty feet of wing, beak, or talon.

  The three creatures stretched and folded their wings, and Thalnarra nodded to Vidarian. He turned toward the city, advancing up the pier, and in short order they were drawing near the Quest's mooring.

  “Come no closer, Vidarian!” Endera called when they approached hearing distance. “We will negotiate the terms of your ship's return from here!” An unearthly, malicious sound like low thunder vibrated the air around them, and Vidarian realized that Thalnarra was growling.

  // Peace, sister, // Altair murmured, but his entreaty only heightened her ire.

  “My air brother, I welcome you to Val Harlon-and wish it were under better circumstances!” Endera shouted to him.

  // He is not your brother, // Thalnarra said, and the growl in her throat was dwarfed by the force in her mind's voice: a raw ferocity crackling in her mind, and a fierce satisfaction. // And I am not your Sister. Our bond with the priestesshood is ended, Endera, over your rash choice. // She punctuated this with a piercing cry, rearing back on her hind legs and hooking a talon in the direction of the two black-cloaked figures that stood behind Endera.

  “These are water Sisters-“ Endera began, turning.

  // Indeed they are not, hrrr! // Arikaree objected, radiating affront, his dark feathers rousing. // They are being known to no ocean! // His words, like Thalnarra's, were oddly weighted, carrying swirls of thought for which Vidarian's language had no words, and Altair turned to him in surprise. // Yes, hurr, // the fisher-gryphon affirmed, with a dip of his long beak. // You are feeling it also. A madness! //

  “The temple cannot sanction this action!” Ariadel shouted, and in her voice Vidarian heard how it taxed her to contradict her mentor.

  “I act alone!” Endera agreed, her own voice strident and shrill. “But for the good of us all, as you well know, my student! The priestesses you see here are loyal to me!”

  Ariadel colored at the reprimand, but her jaw was firm. A heated retort died on her lips, though, when they all heard familiar boot-heels smartly crossing the dock behind them. In a moment, Ruby was at their side, her sword unsheathed and raised. She lifted it in an ironic salute to the Quest, and then back toward land, at the rowdy crew that raised their voices in a raucous cheer as she acknowledged them. The tip of the sword swung low and dangerous as she rewarded their acclaim with a theatrical bow.

  “Impeccable timing,” Vidarian said quietly, and Ruby only grinned, wolfish.

  “It was looking a bit dodgy,” she said, gesturing with the tip of her sword at the Quest.

  The priestesses aboard grew visibly nervous at the cheers of Ruby's crew. Their flames flickered, then roared higher, licking dangerously close to the ship's rigging.

  “Your choices are your own,” Endera called to the gryphons, deliberately ignoring the pirates. “History will doubtless condemn me for a villain-”

  “Then perhaps you should reconsider your action!” Ruby shouted, lifting her longsword. The crew cheered again, eliciting more uneasiness from the priestesses.

  “As much as I appreciate your assistance,” Vidarian murmured, “do take care they don't torch my ship.”

  A scuffle broke out atop the deck, and by the time Vidarian realized what was happening, Marielle was being hustled from the deck, shouting obscenities at the cloaked figures. One of them strode toward the rail, reaching a hand toward Vidarian. Her hood fell back, baring the same blonde hair and grey eyes he'd seen at Sher'azar.

  “Tesseract!” she shouted. “Fortune be upon you! Even now you draw close to our most exalted lady-”

  The gryphons mantled at the tone in her voice and the weird energy that rose around her as she reached toward him.

  Curious…the voice purred inside his mind.

  “I sense her!” the grey-eyed priestess exulted, an hysterical wildness in her voice. “She is near!”

  Both black-robed priestesses raised their arms, and in the strange energy that emanated out from them, the flames atop the torches that covered the Empress Quest roared lurid blue.

  Chaos broke out aboard the Quest. Priestesses cried out as their own life flames leapt from their hands, wild and out of control. The flames, unearthly blue, crawled and writhed like living animals, and swept across the deck faster than if it had been doused in oil. Endera fought the flames, managing to douse her own, but only barely managing to rescue some of her acolytes from theirs. The freed priestesses ran down the gangplank, while others still on the deck leapt into the sea. Endera, abandoned, turned back toward the black-cloaked priestesses, shouting over the roar of the flames, “What is the meaning of this? Do you abandon yet another vow?” The blonde priestess hissed, an inhuman sound, and flung out a hand, releasing a wave of energy that knocked Endera to the deck.

  Ariadel ran to meet Endera, lifting her hands to fight the flames aboard the ship. Thalnarra and the two other gryphons leapt away from Vidarian and Ruby, taking flight to wage their own war against the strange blue fire.

  But their best efforts, Vidarian knew, might be enough only to save a few lives. Not the Quest, which even now, to his numb horror, was engulfed with ravenous fire.

  Something ripped loose in Vidarian. In his anguish and fury, he relinquished control of himself to the power that simmered beneath his skin.

  Pure vengeance, a celestial retribution that had consumed stars and entire planets, poured through his veins, and this world and even the universe beyond ceased to exist save for these two creatures, which deserved death and suffering through their every fiber.

  His arms moved without his will, reaching toward the priestesses. They cried out in ecstasy, shouting for their goddess, babbling how they had waited, how they had been devoted.

  He knew what it was to pluck a galaxy from the sky and swallow it whole. This was what he unleashed upon the cloaked figures: a nothingness that unmade them, ate them away from their cores to their skins, leaving nothing, not even a smoking circle where they had stood. He felt bone and sinew give way before him, marrow and m
uscle, as their screams of devotion turned to horror and fear.

  Last to vanish were their thoughts, which lingered in the air like an echo in a ravine, and at last faded from a wordless cry of despair to a ringing silence. The flames rushed to fill the gap where they had stood, no longer blue, but a deadly and more familiar red.

  In that moment of exultation, when the Vkortha had been reduced to nothingness, Vidarian seized back control of himself, gasping. He looked up and saw the burning tops of the Quest, the falling rigging, the skeletal main and mizzen blackened with ash and fire-

  Ruby was suddenly there, hauling on his arm, dragging him away from the inferno. He turned back to her and saw his own anguish reflected there in her eyes. Tears streamed down her face-whether for his grief or from the searing smoke, he couldn't know. “She's gone, ‘Darian,” she shouted over the blasting heat, calling him by the childhood name his sister had used. He hadn't heard it since her death. “And you won't help anyone going down with her! Not like this!”

  Vidarian staggered backward, pulled from the falling wreckage, but could not tear his eyes away from his family's legacy listing over, consumed by fire, groaning like an animal as one of the holds gave way and it tilted into the harbor. The main snapped, its base eaten by flame, and Vidarian's heart broke with it. He cried out, a wail lost in the roar of the fire, and threw a hand back toward it.

  The main yard high overhead gave way with a sickening crack, and Vidarian stared up at it, numb. Ruby pushed him out of the way, throwing out her arms. The rent edge of the yard caught her in the side, its splintered and blackened end disappearing a handsbreadth into her flesh, so fast that it took her breath away midway through the start of a scream of pain.

  Vidarian dove after her as she fell to the planks. A span of wood as long as his arm protruded from her side, and her legs spasmed helplessly as her body realized its trauma. He reached toward her, and her cry of pain was not from his touch, but it stopped him nonetheless. Gritting his teeth, he reached out with his senses, wrapping the projectile in elemental energy, and searing through the top of it, leaving it to fall away from her.